Part 19

She can't take her eyes off the large, luxurious bed that her beloved just materialized for her. She could spend a long time admiring it, and she fully intends to, but she mostly wonders what role the bed played in her past – in their past.

"This bed was yours; it has been for many years."

It gets less and less difficult to be unable to remember anything from before she lost her memories now that her True Love is here with her in the hospital. She may be incapable of recalling any of their shared history, but it's a lot more bearable when he tells her all she wants to know about it instead.

"This is the bed from your childhood bedroom, in your father's castle. You slept in it until the day you came with me. Although I know you can't remember it, I hope it'll bring you some comfort to sleep in it again tonight."

"I think it will," she says, marveling at this gesture. At the same time she struggles to understand how he brought it here, the bed so much larger than the items he made appear out of thin air by magic before.

It's obvious that he used magic again, but the things he has conjured for her so far are items which are not only a lot smaller than this, they were also already available in this world. From what she has understood from him, they are in a different world now than the one they came from... the one where this bed apparently comes from as well.

"It's not really anywhere here," he says, answering her unspoken question. "I've seen it once, and I re-created it from memory."

It's intriguing, it really is, to learn more of his magic, of the impossible things it can do. But the implication of his words is yet more interesting than what he is actually telling her.

"When did you see it?" she questions gently.

From what he told her before, she presumed that he wouldn't have been anywhere near the room where she slept in her childhood. She knows now how she abruptly left her father's castle to go with him as the caretaker of his estate, to secure the safety of her friends and family.

Surely, there wouldn't have been any reason for him to see her bedroom then, and he wouldn't have had the opportunity – and again, no reason for that matter – later on. And yet, he claims to have seen it. She can't determine of course with certainty whether the bed he conjured was actually hers, but there's no doubt in her mind in that regard.

"I saw your bed after Regina told me that you had died," he says reluctantly, once more not quite looking at her. "I was devastated when I thought you were dead. I was lost. And I didn't doubt her. Even when I questioned her, when I told her that she must be lying about you, I didn't truly doubt her. I am prone to think the worst, as you know, and this was no exception. To think that you had died because I had thrown you out, that my attempt to spare you from a life of misery with me had caused your death instead... it was exactly the sort of thing, the kind of irony, that had followed me all my life."

She steps closer to him, laying her hands on his arms, hoping that the touch can ground him to the present, anchor him in the knowledge that she's as alive as he is.

"I went back to your father's lands eventually. Not to make sure there was proof of the story that Regina had told me. If only I had... I just wanted to see you one final time. Well, I couldn't see you, of course not. But I wanted to see for myself what had happened to your... remains. I had to see, to know, where you had ended up."

His sadness is almost tangible and tears well in her eyes too as she wonders what it must have been like for him to go looking for the location where he believed her body had been disposed of, to believe that he was responsible for her death.

"I sensed you, when I returned in disguise to the grounds of your father's castle, that you had been there. Something of you lingered there. It was so vague that it was barely noticeable, but we had lived together for quite some time and I... well, in my castle I spent a lot of time enjoying your nearness, just feeling the change in the air whenever you were around. It was easy to trace the source of something that once was you to a graveyard, just outside the castle's walls."

His head is bowed, his sorrow raw despite all the time that must have passed since that day. She tightens her hold on his arm, wishing that she would have been able to do the exact same thing during all the years they were forced to be apart, oblivious to the other's existence.

"I may never know how she had done it. Maybe Regina used your clothes, or a lock of your hair. She might have used an enchantment on another body. I suppose I don't want to know. It's too late for that."

He stares ahead, straight back into the past, his expression grim.

"I felt your presence there, in the darkest corner of that cemetery, somewhere at the end of a row of unmarked graves. There was no stone, no flowers, nothing to remind the world of the extraordinary woman who was buried there... or rather, who was supposed to rest there. Nothing to honor you."

His voice is almost emotionless and if it wouldn't be for everything she has learned about him throughout the past few hours, she wouldn't have known that this is the only way that he can tell her this. But now it's clear as glass to her that pretending towards himself that he isn't so deeply affected by these events, is the only way for him to think back on them and share them with her.

"Finding your grave, believing you to be dead... I... I broke. You brought joy back into my life... you gave me life itself back. But it died there, with you."

He shivers in her embrace and she wonders whether he ever truly recovered, even after finding out that he was deceived in such an excruciating way.

"I remember crying there. Calling out for you. Begging for you to come back. I believe I would have done just about anything to undo your death. Whether you would return to me or not, I wanted you alive... free and safe and happy, one way or another. Of course, nothing of that sort happened. Not then, at least."

Some of the tension leaves his shoulder as he gives her an ever so small smile.

"I woke up in the rain, lying in mud... in the dirt covering your supposed grave. I don't recall why I lost consciousness, if I exhausted myself or that I hoped that death would claim me as well, to be reunited with you in that way. I knew that I couldn't die because of my curse, that there were very few means to make an end to my life, and dying of exposure certainly wasn't one of them. But still... I felt dead."

Caressing him as carefully as she can, she wishes that she knew a way to give him more strength, to help him through this. But there's nothing she can do except for listening to him and hoping that it'll bring him some relief to talk like this, probably for the very first time speaking aloud about this.

"I was cold. So very, very cold. I had been alone for a long time, but only when you were gone I realized... I was afraid, Belle. Of being without you. Of having to live without you. I was desperate for something, anything to remind me of you, to hold on to you. Since I was next to the castle where you grew up... It was an awful idea, but I just had to..."

He shakes his head, as if the memory of this - the shame of it - has been hunting him until this very day. In response, she tangles her hand in his hair, effectively stilling him.

"With my magic, it was very easy to find my way to your chamber, to get to the bedroom where you grew up. It was just as simple to make sure that no one detected me, that I could do as I pleased."

There's an apology in his eyes and she nods at him, encouraging him to tell whatever happened then, unpleasant as it might be.

"Your room looked like you had left it just a few minutes ago. There were opened books on the table, a nightgown at the edge of your bed, the sheets still pulled back... there was still a dent in your pillow. Your father must have ordered to have your room cleaned, but except from that leave it exactly as it was when you went with me. You had been gone for more than a year, you were dead, but that room made it seem like you could still walk in at any moment."

He falters again and she tightens her hold on him, urging him to continue.

"I remember standing on the threshold, telling myself that I shouldn't do it. But I missed you so much and just daring to believe for just a moment that you might come back... I got rid of the dirt on myself and I used the exact same spell as I did here to make sure that no one would disturb me. There was a comfortable chair near the window, with a pile of books next to it. I imagined that you spent much reading time there, or just looking at the world outside, thinking."

It's a good thing that he is in her arms already, for the narration of his despair painfully reminds her of what it was like to live all alone in emptiness.

"I lit a fire in the hearth and conjured our tea set from my castle. I settled down in your chair and just sat there, letting myself pretend that you could come home at any moment, that you would sit down next to me and that you would tell me about your day. We would have tea together, just like we used to, but without having to pretend any longer that we aren't in love."

"But I never came home," she mutters, not needing to remember their past to know exactly where he is going with this.

"I stayed there for hours," he says, nodding. "I watched the sky turn dark, thinking how suitable it was. When you were gone... it was as if the sun was taken away from me. You are my light, Belle. You are my life."

He looks directly at her while talking, seemingly no longer afraid to address her like this, to declare his affection so openly.

"And I think you were mine. You most certainly are right now."

The way he smiles in response confirms for her just how right she is about that.

"It went completely dark eventually," he continues, as if he found yet more strength in her confirmation of their current closeness. "I hadn't slept since I sent you away, hadn't rested at all. Sitting there, surrounded by your things, by the life you once had... I couldn't pretend anymore that you would come back to me sooner or later. You were gone, dead, and only because I had been so cruel, so stupid..."

"What happened?" she asks, finding that she's getting better and better at steering him tactfully away from his self-loathing and regret.

"Your bed was right there, on the other side of the room. I couldn't persuade myself any longer that there would be a day that you would use it again... that we might share it, that you would welcome me to stay with you throughout the night. To hold you, to... touch you. But I was tired, so very tired. I felt that I couldn't go on any longer. Your bed was just a few steps away from where I was sitting and..."

"Go on," she breathes, fully intend to continue keeping his hesitation at bay.

"I slept in your bed," he breathes, looking away from her yet again, as if he is convinced that this admission will make an end to her current acceptance of him after all. "I lay down on your feather mattress, my head on your pillow, and pulled the blankets over me. I closed my eyes, being right where you spent most nights of your life, hoping that I would never have to open them again."

He swallows heavily, tightening his hold on her, having to reassure himself yet again of her nearness, of her forgiveness and sheer aliveness. He stares past her though, at a point somewhere behind her, lost in that long gone night once more.

Knowing only too well what it's like to be trapped like this, and not wanting either of them to be lost for only one more moment, she reaches for his face. She cups his cheek with her palm, guiding his gaze back to hers to bring him back to the present.

He smiles a little, and so does she, when he blinks a few times and refocuses his gaze, returning to the here and now, to her.

The past and its cruelties can't be changed or made undone, but that isn't all that unbearable any longer now that they're together once more after all.

Thanks very much for (still) reading this! My apologies for the hiatus in posting. From now on updates should be frequent once more :)